PAIRIDAEZA(PARADISE)
Iran 2019

In the arid Iranian desertic lands, not long after the discovery of channelization, some of the first human-designed ornamental landscapes were created. The origin of the word Paradise, meaning a garden enclosed by walls, “Pairidaēza” in the old Persian language, comes also from that world.

Protected all around by high walls, a garden is designed to become a place of enjoyment, isolated from the hot climate outside. A sort of Paradise on earth, where to physically and spiritually relax in the shadow of fruit trees, surrounded by flower beds, calm fountains and freshwater channels.

The conceptualization of the Persian gardens began under the Zoroastrian Achaemenids around 600BC. It then continued when Islam became the main religion in 600AD. In the Quran, heaven (Jannah) is described as a “garden of delights”. The righteous will enjoy, flowing rivers of wine, fruits and meat, surrounded by pure girls with beautiful eyes and modest gazes (Surah Ar-Rahmaan 55:56).

Today, inside garden walls, people look for different kinds of protection: some search breezes of freedom from the strict inner rules of society, others from the impositions of the outer global world. Perhaps what Ferdowsi wrote one thousand years ago still applies: “the whole Iran is like a lush Spring garden, where roses ever bloom and the army are the gardens walls. If the garden’s walls are pulled down, then there would be no difference between it and the wilderness beyond”.

My journey began in the dry deserts, searching for primordial signs of life, expressions of the four elements that are metaphorically represented in the rectangular architecture of gardens and in the Zoroastrian division of the universe. I then visited traditional and modern gardens, driven by the desire to better understand the link between the material world and that of meaning, how a society relates to its spirit and to its environment.